rewards!

A couple of weeks ago I accidentally subscribed to the "popular ideas" feed of the "My Starbucks Idea" blog. (I was trying to subscribe to the actual Starbucks blog feed, the one that is actually updated by Starbucks people that tells you new things about Starbucks, but it turns out that every RSS button you click just subscribes you to "popular ideas." It's stupid.)

Anyway, I haven't gotten around to unsubscribing, mostly because it is on occasion hilarious. But it's getting a bit tedious to read even just the subject lines, which overwhelmingly have one of the following three suggestions:

1) Give us a gold star for every beverage purchased, not just every transaction!

1b) Then, in the comments, inevitably: Not every BEVERAGE purchased, that's unfair to us who buy FOOD. Every ITEM purchased or, alternately, a gold star for every dollar spent!

2) Stop mailing out the free drink coupons! It's environmentally unfriendly/my cards get stolen, there is no reason that we know of why you can't have the drink be automatically granted via my gold card!

3) Reduce the number of stars needed for a free beverage from 15 to 10!

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep let me back up the train.

I should explain Starbucks's rewards program. Basically, it starts with getting a Starbucks card. After you load it up and register it at starbucks.com, you get a free beverage on your birthday. After five transcations you graduate to "green level," and you get a few extra perks including free syrups/milk substitution (which during the autumn/winter/spring saves me like $1/drink). After thirty transactions you graduate to "gold," at which point you get a fancy gold Starbucks card with your name on it and a free drink every fifteen transactions.

This is the only rewards program that I am a part of, so I don't really have anything to compare it to, but I love it for the free syrups/soy milk alone. That's actually what I'm in it for, really. If they bumped it to cover one extra espresso shot (which I think they should, if only because venti drinks should really receive three shots of espresso — tall gets one, grande gets two, venti gets… also two?) then life, at least insofar as it relates to Starbucks, would be perfect.

The fact that the "popular" ideas overwhelmingly are pleas to Starbucks for easier ways to take advantage of Starbucks bothers me. I'm pretty sure that there is no way that Starbucks will ever institute a system in which patrons receive a "star" per beverage vs. "star" per transaction, if only because there are a lot of people who are going to buy coffee for their entire office, pay with their Starbucks card, and pocket the cash. I just think that's shady.

This affected me the other day, which is why I bring it up. Friday afternoon I was going over to Starbucks to pick up an iced coffee and my boss asked me to get her a passion iced tea lemonade. She gave me cash, and I walked over to Starbucks.

After emphasizing to the barista that I wanted separate transactions, she swiped my Starbucks card for my drink, and apologized because the system was lagging. It was taking forever, so I was chatting with her and her coworker, not paying attention — when I suddenly noticed her swiping my card again, for my boss's drink. I immediately pointed out her mistake, and she apologized, but was unable to refund it because the system was having problems.

It wasn't a huge deal, but it really does bother me. When I worked at Starbucks, if a customer wanted two drinks rung up separately, I'd automatically assume that the two drinks were being paid for by two different people and expect two separate forms of payment. Because that is what people usually do. That is the logical thing to do.

The "stars," and the free drinks, are supposed to be a reward for being a loyal customer. That's the whole point. It sucks that greedy and obnoxious people are gaming the system and making baristas' lives more difficult. And not only that, they think they should be rewarded with free stuff five "stars" earlier!

All I can think is, no wonder my Starbucks people like me so much. (Barring those times when I marginally change up my order and throw everybody off and then they tell me that they don't actually like me best anymore, which frankly just wrecks my whole day.)

So all I have to say is, Starbucks, don't change a thing. Except make it not one "star" per transaction, make it one "star" per transaction per hour. Wreck the day for all those people who are trying to game the system.

In fact, I think that I will submit this to My Starbucks Idea. Because I think it is the best idea ever.